


a fool and a broken jedi

by veus



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:09:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veus/pseuds/veus
Summary: short atton/f!exile things, each in separate chapters.
Relationships: Female Jedi Exile/Atton "Jaq" Rand, The Jedi Exile/Atton "Jaq" Rand
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. alone, together

**Author's Note:**

> I can and do get a lot of universe stuff wrong since kotor 2 is the only star wars media I care about, so if I get something wrong don't tell me... I don't wanna know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> location: ebon hawk

The exile wakes in darkness, choking on breath and the dream-held panic that still seizes her chest. Her surroundings filter back in slowly: the cold metal of the wall at her right, the murky darkness of the ship’s near-empty dormitory stretching out to her left, and the black of the night sky outside the ship’s window. She measures her breaths until she can count the stars, and counts stars until her heartbeat no longer pounds in her ears. She can hear the quiet again, and from that quiet comes a tired, irritated, “C'mere.”

Her eyes seek Atton in the dark. In the bunk across from her, the contour of his form underneath the covers takes on a curious shape, and she realizes he’s holding the covers open with a tired arm.

“I felt it,” he says plainly, too sleep-minded to explain in any detail. “Distress call, pulling me from sleep. You’re not alone, I’m here with you, now come over here so we can both sleep through the night.”

“Has it always woken you up?” She says, quietly. She’s never noticed– but the ship is much emptier now that only Atton and the droids remain, and she supposes such things become more obvious when left the space.

“Covers are closing if you’re not getting in,” is all he says in return, so she slips quietly across the room, feet hitting the floor almost before she’s made the conscious decision for them to. He makes a space for her, but it is just right, and she tangles in with him to fit within the edges of the mattress. Atton lowers the covers over them both, shielding them in.

“Thank you,” she says.

“Just sleep,” he says. He follows his own directions soon after.

Even in sleep, his thoughts ghost by in the periphery of her awareness in the form of meaningless words that melt into the thrumming hull of the ship, the whirring of T3-M4’s servos, and the hum of HK-47’s processor. If the world were to fall away, she’s sure that the words, the whir, the hum, would retreat into the deafening sound of the galaxy. So she lays awake, trying to memorize him in the darkness: the weight of his arm curled protectively around her, the warmth of his body against hers, his slow, even breaths that brush past her hair. She reaches out, not with mind but with body, and keeps him close.

(When he wakes to the light of day, Atton will find the exile deep asleep. He’ll be grateful… for a time. He’ll realize that to get up he’ll have to break her grasp and wake her. And if he decides to remain a while longer, for her sake, passing time by committing to memory the way the light plays across her hair… well, that’s no one’s business but his own.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dorm isn't laid out this way but for convenience's sake let's just all pretend otherwise


	2. force heal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> location: telos surface

“Atton? I thought you–” The exile can’t finish her words, her breaths still harsh, a dull pain creeping into the tight grip she has on the hilt of her vibroblade. She hadn’t registered the renewed blaster fire coming from behind her until it struck down the last mercenary in unison with her blade, and she had turned to see Atton, holstering his blaster and striding smoothly towards her. The smoothness evaporates, however, as he nears her.

“Whoa, hey. Relax. It’s over, right?”

“Yes. Yes,” she says. “I’d forgotten how it… You both fell, I… But you got back up. You came back.”

“I don’t give up easy,” Atton says, trying to deliver the line with a smile for her sake, but resulting in a grimace when he wonders why he’s trying so hard.

“You don’t,” she echos, looking at him, finally revealing a relief in her eyes. “I’ll have to remember that.”

He can only look so long into her eyes before he has to turn away, and he spots Bao-Dur, who had fallen a little beyond the nearest grassy ridge.

“Hey, uh, the Iridonian,” Atton says. “You wouldn’t know… some kinda Force power, to get him back up and with us?”

“Not anymore,” the exile says, then catches herself, correcting, “Not yet. But I can at least heal him, I think. I have grown strong enough for that.”

The exile sheathes her blade. Strength returns to the line of her back and the set of her shoulders, along with a laser focus that shuts her expression back into a neutral mask. Atton follows her to the ridge, to Bao-Dur, where his remote has been flitting around his head like a beacon, catching the sunlight.

It had been easier for Atton to read the exile on Peragus, but she hadn’t had much to read, then. Now she does, and he watches: her deliberate step, her measured kneel, and her hands, hovered over Bao-Dur in uncertainty… no, anticipation. Her jaw tenses as she pulls in one more look before her eyes close shut, and a glow takes over, emanating from her hands, bathing Bao-Dur’s wounds in light. When the exile pulls her hands back, his wounds are only partially healed and she looks far more drained than she should, but it worked.

“Still got it, huh?” Atton says. The exile looks pensively at Bao-Dur’s closed eyes, her hands still open as though she remembers what she must do to revive him, but remembers her limits, too.

“I have a long way to go,” is all she says. Her relief comes through, however, as it does every time her use of the Force grows.

“Still, it’s good to see,” Atton says. The exile’s connection to the Force isn’t something he understands, or wants to understand, but part of her seems to heal whenever it grows stronger, and he wants that for her. If he’s honest with himself, he…

…He wants Bao-Dur to get back up already, so they can find their ship and leave Telos.


	3. telos surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tfw you're on telos' surface and you overestimate your health bar and you pass out

When she comes to, the sky is beautiful, and her body brims with pain. The exile’s first reaction is no longer to check her wounds, but allow herself to remain ignorant for a little while longer with a shaky breath and exhale. To the left is a bent leg clothed in black, and following it reveals Atton, seated casually on this grassy knoll about an arm’s distance away from her. She meets his eye, which isn’t as much on her as it is her injuries.

“You’re back with us,” Atton says, having had his attention on her since she woke. “Try not to push yourself like that again. I’d rather get off this planet with you alive.”

“Where is Bao-Dur?” The exile asks.

“Got tired of waiting for you and went to scout ahead. We’ll see if he comes back.”

“He will,” She says. Atton shrugs, and turns his gaze away at last– only to bring it back again when she prepares to heal herself through the Force.

“What are you doing? You just woke up,” he says, eyeing her with the look of someone monitoring a barely contained disaster. Ignoring him for the moment, she draws in what amount of the Force she can and closes her eyes against the glow, focusing only on directing it through her body to return it to order.

“This is nothing. I’m better now.” She moves to get up, but moves too fast, and now sways standing with a dizzied head. Hands appear by her side in an instant to steady her– Atton’s.

“I _used_ to be better,” she says, unable to keep the trace of bitterness out of her voice. Upon the heels of her joy at reconnecting with the Force had come an overeager hope, one that brought back glowing memories of what she used to be capable of. But that, and encountering Bao-Dur, had opened the gates to remembering who she used to be, as well– and she is not so sure she wants to fall back into that, so quickly, so soon.

Feeling that the exile has her balance back, Atton slowly relaxes his grip on her arms, then removes his hands entirely.

“Crazy Jedi,” Atton says under his breath, then, normally, “You’re no use in a fight like this, alright? Just… take it easy. We can spare a minute for you to recover. If you’re going to rush into battle like that, do it when an old witch _isn’t_ going to have my head for returning with you in anything less than peak condition.”

“What would you have had to do with it?” The exile asks.

“Nothing. I just know she’d find a way to turn it back on me.”

She looks down at the grass at her feet, green and inviting, and sits back down… slowly. Atton follows suit, though he only does so after her, and sits closer this time– a mere hand’s breadth from her– as though skeptical she isn’t going to try something like that again. She’s not sure what to make of his attention. Taunting an assassin away from an attempt on her life, and now watching over her when there’s no need for pretense… for all his claims of being self-serving, his actions have said otherwise.

“So, what do you think?” Atton says. “Is being here on the surface calming for you? Or…”

“It’s beautiful,” she says, truthfully. “It’s worth at least half the credits of the restoration effort.”

In the periphery of her view, she can tell Atton is looking at her again, and realizes only then that the first traces of a smile rest on her lips. Unthinkingly, it is wiped away with a thoughtful furrow of her brow, and Atton’s gaze is gone just as quick.

“Half is pushing it,” he says, with the ghost of a chuckle. His gaze remains firmly upon the landscape now, as if to feign that it had always been there. The horizon holds them both until Bao-Dur returns.


	4. a kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she's ace

“Atton, do you have a moment?”

Atton looks up from the array of displays he’d been checking and lets his vacant pilot’s seat go, leaving it to swivel to the front without him. He leans against the chair’s back, arms crossed, but relaxed.

“Sure,” he says. “This isn’t about training again, is it? Because I know I asked, but you’re taking this teacher thing pretty far.”

“No, I came to ask for something.” Cela meets his eye calmly. “A kiss.”

“So it’s _that_ kind of training,” Atton says with an easy smirk, pushing himself from the back of the chair to stand before her properly. “Don’t worry, you can show me that all you like.”

“You’d be the one showing me.”

He smiles, thinking she just means that she wants him to make the move first, but now that he’s paying attention, there’s a nervousness beneath her calm, something he only sees when…

“Wait… You haven’t–?”

Embarrassment seeps through the cracks in her composure, blooming upon her cheeks in a soft pink. She opens her mouth to speak, but he amends his reaction before she can say a word.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Atton says. Rubbing the back of his neck, he jokes, “Wow, the Jedi were stricter than I thought.”

“Relationships weren’t _forbidden_ ,” she says, her voice admirably managing to stay level when her composure is all but lost. “No, I just never have.”

“But, you’re–” he pauses, running for once out of words, and rejoins with an incredulous, “How has no one _seen_ you?”

Cela looks at him a moment, something strange in her eyes, then casts her gaze to the side.

“Atton,” she says, very softly, “I haven’t yet loved in the way I love you.”

Her words linger between them, and as she shifts in place, clearly uncertain in the midst of his silence, it’s clear that he can only file her words away for later. If he thinks about them, if he puts together her offhand mentions, her history, and her admissions, they come together to form a picture where she would never in a million years have loved him back the way he yearned for– and yet, impossibly, she does.

She takes a step back, to turn away, and he leaps back into being.

“I’ll show you,” he blurts out, one step forward to match the one step she took back, his hand open for her to take. “A kiss.”

Atton’s never seen her embarrassed, not like this. Where he’s cool, she’s cooler, but when they’re alone she becomes warmth itself and he is always the first to melt. He’d known that, come to like the way he became so pliable in her hands, even before she’d told him she loved him.

Now it’s her, and she’s open to him, in a way she hasn’t really been before. He’d ripped his chest open for her once just to lay his heart bare, but hers he’s only glimpsed in parts and pieces, and he wants to see it–how she comes together.

“Just follow my lead,” Atton says, smoothly, even as his heart pounds. He brushes a thumb along her jaw, guiding his hand to curve its fingers to the base of her neck, conscious in a way he’s unused to of the specifics of the way they touch.

He leans in, then pauses midway with a chuckle.

“Close your eyes, sweetheart.”

She does. It’s then that he feels this wobbly, lovesick smile sneak its way onto his face, and he realizes, this is how they’re doing this. Not her hands taking hold of the lapels of his jacket, pulling him in in passion; not her slipping in close beside him, drawing it from him wordlessly; but her, asking him, and waiting for him to come to her.

He leans in.

He shows her, and her hand slips up his arm, gripping him close. Again, and she presses closer–or maybe he does–and again, and she smiles against him, and once again he recognizes with a deep certainty that he’s ruined for life, gone on her. When they part, her eyes stay closed for a just beat longer, still savoring his closeness… then open, greeting him with her familiar, warm gaze.

“You’ve got the hang of it,” Atton says, a wide, almost silly grin on his face despite himself. “Thought those Jedi Masters were exaggerating when they said you were a quick study.”

He says that, but part of him was worried she wouldn’t like it; introductions are a lot of pressure, and if he’s honest, it’s been a while.

“I think I know how you can pay me back for training you,” Cela says. Her calm is back, but it’s not hiding anything, anymore.

“I don’t know, I’m in high demand,” he says. Then, lest that discourage her, he adds, “But sure, I can clear out my schedule for you.”

She smiles at him with that teasing look, and he loves her.

“So, did you plan on just kissing me once, or…” Atton smirks, “Should we move this someplace without the view?”

“Oh,” Cela says, face growing warm again as she glances around at the wide windows of the cockpit, as though she only just remembered they existed. “We couldn’t have been _seen_. Could we?”

On the ground floor outside, Bao-Dur rakes in his winnings from a grumbling crew.


	5. scarred au: in mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in a [scarred atton au](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/post/186205184010/ok-ok-atton-defeats-sion-is-hurt-too-badly-to-run)

There would be no words between them, just him, leaning up for a kiss, and her meeting him, her passion pressing him firmly back down against the pillow, the mattress, as her lips fit perfectly with his. She’d be strong, steady… vulnerable.

“I could have lost you,” she’d say, upon drawing back. He doesn’t know what it is, the line or the way he imagines her saying it, with soft eyes and an open heart, looking at him as though he mattered to her. As though she…

He turns his mind back to hyperspace routes. It’s easier.

—

Medbay again. Except this time it’s real, and they’ve escaped the gravity of Malachor.

“I could have lost you,” Cela says. He could almost laugh at the similarity– does try to laugh– but earns himself a renewed burning pain across the left half of his face, and a deeply disapproving look laced with exasperation.

“You would’ve been fine without me,” Atton says, bearing a leftover grin. “I heard you… felt you, in that fight. She never stood a chance.”

“You heard me?”

“I was just outside.”

She thinks on that for a moment, then abruptly tilts her gaze away, hiding her face. He sees a sliver of her cheek, however, and it’s pink.

“Did you hear everything I asked?”

“Yeah, and I heard how she skirted around some of our futures, too.” He knows what she’s asking, the question that broke through the pain and had him willing her to know, wishing he’d told her.

“Atton…”

He yearns, yes, but he’s afraid, too. If he’d died then in her arms he’d have had nothing to lose, but now that he’s been given his life back, he can’t bear the thought of seeing those eyes cold to him– or worse, sorry.

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t let me down easy… you don’t have to. We can pretend it never happe–”

“I love you,” she says over him in a rush. Her blush deepens endearingly, and her eyes hold affection and disbelief, and this is nothing like his fantasies, but better. He can do nothing but stare at her, and Cela goes on, “I’ve loved you for some time. I didn’t think you loved me the same way. I heard what Kreia saw in your thoughts, that sometimes… I…”

“That voyeuristic witch,” Atton says, void of all but disbelief. Then her words rewind, replay, and he says, “Wait, you…?”

“I love you,” Cela says, once more. Lit from the side by the glow of the indicators and dimmed display screens, lit from within by the Force, and saying _those words_ to him, she couldn’t possibly be real. He reaches out, putting his remaining hand over hers, and for a long moment all he can do is stare.

“Will you say something?” Cela asks. Her hand, warm below his, is proof– but then she withdraws it, and he’s about to protest before he realizes she’s just moving it to cradle the unmarred side of his face. “Atton?”

“Yeah,” he croaks, voice foreign to his ears. “Think I died back there.”

“You’re right here with me.”

Her hand on his cheek is warm, and he leans into it. He wishes Sion had left him his right arm so he could press her warmth in closer.

“Are you cold?” She asks, confused. It makes him grin again, and the pain comes back, but it doesn’t matter– Cela returns a small, tentative smile of her own.

“Sure, I’m cold,” Atton says. “Are you volunteering to warm me up?”

“I’ll get you a blanket,” Cela says.

“You know what I mean,” he says, past deflecting, past denying– and she does, because she’s made no move to leave. She just keeps looking into his eyes and smiling, and he has this funny feeling that he’s doing the exact same thing.

“Move aside,” she says, nudging him over. He does as instructed, and Cela lays down beside him. As she settles in, he wishes Sion had left him his right arm, so he could offer it to her.

“Is your chest hurt?”

“You didn’t patch up my wounds yourself?” He’s only teasing, but she sighs.

“I let Mical do it,” she says. “I felt… drained.”

He sees it, now that she’s so close: the tired lines under her eyes and the exhaustion in her limbs that say she needs rest, just as much as he does. Then those eyes are on his again, alight with intent.

“Tell me if this hurts,” Cela says, and carefully lays an arm across his chest, hugging him loosely. Even though it’s loose, her weight finds the wrong spot, and he releases an involuntary hiss of pain.

“It’s fine!” Atton blurts out when Cela quickly withdraws, her face etched with concern. He’s waited for this; a little pain is nothing, and if anything, he deserves it. “I mean– try it again.”

“No,” she says, still with that worried little furrow to her brow. “I was too eager. We’ll have many more chances after you’ve healed.”

“Try a different spot?” He suggests, and Cela gives him a long, skeptical look, apparently second-guessing every part of his body that had appeared to be okay. Finally, she says, “Name one spot that wouldn’t hurt.”

He shrugs, about to respond– then winces, because of the shrug. Alright. She’s got him there.

Instead of trying again, Cela leans over the edge of the medbay bed for a moment, and returns with a bundle of earthy brown fabric– the outermost layer of her robes. She drapes it over them both. It’s lighter than her embrace, just heavy enough to be comforting, and carries the scent of her, wrapping around him. She curls up on her side to face him and gives him a tired smile.

“It’s not what I had in mind,” she tells him, “But this will do for now.”

He wants to ask what she had in mind. He wants to ask what she meant by _eager_ – if she has been thinking about this, just as much as he has. But she needs her rest, so he only watches as her eyes fall closed, and the small, contented smile on her lips relaxes, giving way to sleep.

No, this wasn’t what he had in mind, either. But her warmth beside him, her scent around him, and her heart, open to his… when it comes down to it, maybe this is all he really wanted.


	6. vampire au: understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in a [vampire / vampire hunter au](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/tagged/vamp-exile-au)

Her body is broken upon the fractured stone that holds her. He’s seen vampires recover from worse, he knows, he _knows_ , but his shaking hand does not hesitate as he takes the knife from his belt and slices a clean red line into the flesh of his arm. It beads, drips, and he holds the unsteady flow to her parted lips. Still like the dead, her head does not turn away.

His cut scabs over. He pulls out the knife again, but her hand shoots out and grabs his wrist, twisting to send the blade clattering to the floor. Mixed emotions rise in his chest; he reaches for anger, comforting in its simplicity.

“I just saved your life,” Atton grits out, attempting to wrench his wrist free, but her grip is solid and unmoving. “How about a gesture of appreciation?”

The world spins, and suddenly he’s flat on his back, gasping the air back into his just-emptied lungs. Cela’s hands have shoved both his forearms against the stone ground above his head, one almost definitely bruising his wrist and the other digging into the freshly scabbed line he would’ve just reopened for her at a simple “please,” and her knees have hit the ground at both sides of his waist. Breathing hard, he opens his mouth to demand a better response, but when he looks up into her eyes, her dark irises are empty.

He’s never stuck around to see a vampire heal. He’s never _let_ one. If her mind is gone right now, if all that is left of her is instinct, this might be the last time he ever hears his heart pound so loudly in his ears.

She stares down at him for a long time. Then, with a scuff of her shoe against stone, she is gone.

He forces the tension to drain from his limbs. He sits up, rubbing blood back into his wrists, trying not to think about how impossible it is that she spared him.

“Close enough,” he says. Apart from his words, the night air is empty, and he is alone.

—

She stands alone. Through the tall window before her are dark trees illuminated from above by the pale light of a waning moon, and a deep fog that obscures the landscape beyond. Within its pale reflection, the open doorway behind her is lit dimly by distant lights, and as she watches, a familiar shadow crosses the threshold.

“Still sulking?” Asks the shadow.

She doesn’t turn around.

“You have to talk to me sometime,” he continues, stepping forward into the window’s line of fractured moonlight. She watches it run up his figure, cut a sharp line across his jaw, and stop, just above the neutral curve of his lips.

“You should be resting,” Cela says.

“What, because of a nick on my arm? Because I got thrown around a little?” Atton scoffs. “If anyone here should be resting, it’s you.”

She hasn’t felt the cold since she was turned, yet she hugs her arms to her chest, hopelessly trying to substitute the fistful of fabric she grips in her hands for control over her emotions.

“When I came back to myself, there was blood on my lips.” Her tongue runs slow over her teeth at the memory, and when she catches herself, she hates it. “It was yours.”

In the glass panes of the window, Atton shifts in place, almost seeming… uneasy.

“Yeah, well, don’t expect it to turn into a regular occurrence,” he says.

“Of course,” Cela says. Her grip tightens, pulling gaps into the knit of her sweater. “It will never happen again.”

“Ha, okay, that’s kind of unrealistic–”

“We must part ways.”

“Wait, what?” Atton takes another step towards her, and the line of moonlight moves with him. She can see the look in his eyes, now, but all she does is glance away.

“I can take the rest of my journey on my own,” she says. “It was a mistake to partner with y–”

“Mistake?!” He echoes, disbelieving. “After what I’ve done for you? I got you your best leads. I _defended_ you, I– I gave you my _blood_. Without me, you’d have still been there, burned alive come sunrise.”

“… _Gave_ me?” Her fingers come to her lips, then away, and for a moment she hesitates to look, still afraid they might come away stained red. “I didn’t attack you?”

“Not unless the you count the way you shoved me to the ground when I tried to give you more,” Atton says. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“I shoved you?” She turns, leaving the cold reflection in the window for Atton in the flesh, who looks exasperated and strangely relieved. “Were you hurt?”

Her worried hands come to the sides of his face, then the back of his head, then the smooth, unmarred skin of his neck. His skin is warm beneath her fingertips, and his heartbeat steady beneath that, and her gaze sweeps down the deepened cut of his neckline, relieved to find this sliver of him untouched. He draws her gaze back up with a nonchalant shrug.

“Only if you count a couple bruises,” Atton says. “Feel better now?”

She can’t answer.

“Cela–”

“I couldn’t remember anything,” she says. His heart beats, so close to her. “It could happen again. What if next time…”

“You can’t dwell on that,” Atton says.

“But what if–”

“Cela,” Atton says, looking at her with something calm and steady in his eyes, “I _know_.”

And as she meets the darkened grey of his eyes, she thinks she understands now the nature of what knowledge his background has given him. That in a way, he already knows her at her worst, before she has ever reached it.

“Why did you help me?” She asks now, voice barely breaking a whisper. “There was enough time. I was not so close to death. Even without your assistance, I would have recovered before dawn.”

This time it’s his turn to fall silent. Even obscured by the shadow she casts upon him, there is so much to read upon his face, and so little she understands of it.

“I didn’t want to wait,” Atton says, at last. Then… “Take your time. I’ll be outside.”

And as she stands there still in the moonlight, he returns to the shadows beyond her room, taking his quickened heartbeat with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [accompanying sketch](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/post/626241276784836608/what-this-looked-like-afterwards)


	7. vampire au: true nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in a [vampire / vampire hunter au](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/tagged/vamp-exile-au)

Atton tenses, and Cela is off of him in an instant, her lips already shaping an apology.

“Am I too—”

“You're taking too long.” While he hates seeing her weak, he hates how she's been hovering over him more. “You're treating me like I'm—” _porcelain_ , comes to mind, then _precious_ , which brings a confusing twinge to his heart, “—weak.”

He reaches for the first few fastenings of his shirt, making quick, rough work of the task her tentative fingers had lingered on too long, and bares the curve between his neck and his shoulder. “Come on. You're hungry, aren't you?”

“I am,” Cela whispers, voice as weak as she looks, and gaze fixed upon his bared skin, almost against her own will. “But I don't want to—”

“Hurt me?” The empty sentiment is familiar, related by any vampire holding onto their facade of a human heart. While Cela's put up a cute fight with all her insistence that she keep him safe, the act is getting old. “I don't know what kind of kill is haunting you, but I'm not like them. I've been trained; I can stop you if you take too much.”

He's grown used to the stare of her sharp, intelligent eyes, but feels their absence now as they go blank to process the meaning of his words. Hunger is powering down rational thought in favor of instinct, and whether or not she has the presence of mind left to believe him, tonight ends the same way.

When her gaze returns, however, it doesn't snap back to his neck—it snakes down his torso, running over his stomach and hips. For a moment, he wonders if he'd misread the depth of her hunger, but she pulls the knife from his belt and presses it into his hand.

“With this,” she says, her cold hand tight around his fingers, made to wrap around the handle. Her eyes are dark with hunger, yet something resolute still lurks behind them. “Can you stop me with this?”

“Easily,” he says.

“Then I won't hold back.”

And before he can smirk and privately revel in seeing her finally show her true nature, she pushes him down and sinks her teeth in.

✧

The darkness above spins, and his head is far, far away as he lays half conscious on a sea of fabric. As his vision returns, the sea coalesces into a four poster bed, all curtains drawn but one, through which is a window his foggy mind registers as familiar. This is _Cela's_ room.

It takes forever to lift his hand, but less to direct it to the side of his neck. He knows that if he stood before a mirror, he would see twin punctures in his skin, and a bruise formed beneath the crescent imprints of her teeth. The soreness in his shoulder builds until he cannot touch her marks any longer, and his arm falls heavily to his side.

Something jumps at the fall, tipping over the edge of the out-of-focus side table to clatter to floor, ringing loud in the otherwise quiet room. A blurry figure approaches, becoming clearer as it does, and bends down to retrieve the fallen item: his knife.

“You should keep this close,” Cela says.

“Still worried you're going to kill me?” Atton says, his first words slow upon a dull tongue. Cool fingers reach over to brush his tousled hair aside, cupping his face as though to test its warmth before withdrawing back to her side.

“It makes me feel better,” is all Cela says as she sits at the side of the bed, the mattress dipping for her weight. She picks something up off the side table and sets it up before him—a tray of food.

“I'm not sure what you need,” Cela admits. “I never thought I would... ever again. Perhaps I should have listened to more of Kreia's lessons.”

“No, this is fine,” Atton says. He tries to sit up, doing his best to pretend it doesn’t send his vision swimming, but by the looks of Cela's expression, he's not doing too good a job of it. Collapsing back into the covers, he gives up. “Gonna tell me why I'm so sore?”

“Tension,” Cela says. “You... writhed, a lot. I held you down.”

“So, we didn't....” He trails off long enough, and Cela looks at him with clear, curious eyes, then laughs.

“No. I've heard that it can feel like that, though.”

“Only heard? Didn't you feel it when you were turned?”

She looks thoughtfully down at the covers for a moment, gaze lost in memory.

“Not really. But I am strange,” she says. “I never felt such things to begin with.”

She nudges the tray forward, a clear change in subject.

“You should drink some water, at least,” she says. “You look like you need it.”

“So I look like shit,” Atton grumbles. “Nothing new.”

Still, he makes another effort to prop himself up, and succeeds in shuffling himself higher against the fluffed pillows at his back. Then he notices that he's in a loose, pullover shirt... not the buttoned one he'd been wearing. His jacket, too, has mysteriously vanished from his person.

“I gave you access to my blood. I didn't say you could _strip_ me,” he says. Cela looks embarrassed.

“You—I... made a mess. I didn't want your shirt to stain.” As though aware that he'd find it a poor excuse, she adds, “It's alright, I didn't touch anything else.”

“And my belt?”

“Well—you can't sleep wearing a _belt_ ,” Cela says, so firmly disapproving and stern over something so mundane that he laughs.

“Sure I can. I do it all the time.”

“It's not right,” Cela insists. “It's uncomfortable.”

“And you care about my comfort, do you?”

“Of course I do,” she says. She's got that soft look in her eyes again, the one that makes his heart twinge and feel weak. It doesn’t feel so bad like this, though—not now that she’s taken him seriously.

“So, what did you think?” He finds himself asking. “How was I?”

“Your taste, was—”

“No, not that,” Atton interrupts, before his face can go hot. “I meant....”

In a realization that should hit harder than it does, he finds that he meant to ask what she had thought of _him_ —if she had found his body, not the contents of it, to her liking. Now that his head has had time to clear, he remembers how she had undressed him: her cold, efficient fingers had made quick work of his shirt and stripped it away, damp with blood. She'd sponged the last traces of salt and iron from his skin, and after easing a fresh shirt over his head, had carried him to bed and left him there, alone. She had looked as though she would have stayed, though. She had looked...

“You were very warm,” Cela answers for him, when he never elaborates. His face is hot now anyway, and she smiles, wistful, at his flushed cheeks. “I don't need warmth, anymore... but I miss it.”

“So come in and join me.”

They both freeze speechless at that, and it takes Atton about five mortified seconds to realize the words were his, and spoken aloud. Cela, on the other hand, waits those seconds to grace him with another smile.

“You're sweet like this,” she says, softly.

“Is that a yes?” He blurts out before his mind even has a chance to vet what he’s saying—stupid, what is wrong with him? But his words no longer charm her, and the smile falls from Cela's lips as her expression closes off into an unreadable mask once again.

“I should leave,” she says, withdrawing. “We will not speak again until your mind is clear... you'll thank me.”

He doesn't think so. Then again, even he knows he's lost it—first offering himself to her, then inviting her to join him. She leaves the room, and he lets his head fall back against the pillows with a frustrated sigh, willing unconsciousness to take him before his thoughts do.


	8. vampire au: one request

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in a [vampire / vampire hunter au](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/tagged/vamp-exile-au)

_Turn me into a vampire._

The words had hung heavy in the air, between her and the grey of Atton's impassioned eyes. She had told him she would consider it.

Then he had left, and she had lay numbly upon the covers of her bed until the hours passed into day, and then into night once more.

✧

When Atton comes to her again, she pretends she is ready for him, but it only takes a moment for him to see through her.

“You don't seem yourself today,” Atton says. “Something on your mind?”

“Your request,” Cela says. As though he’d put last night out of his mind and only just now remembered it, he turns suddenly sheepish, almost timid as he rubs the back of his neck.

“Oh, yeah. You didn't wait for me to tell you why, but... then I guess you know why.”

There is a light flush to his cheeks, and all she can think about is how she's been asked to drain it from him, forever. She has not considered the mystery of his reasons, not during the day and not tonight.

“I don't expect anything to change between us because of this, you know. You don't have to say anythi—”

“You know that you will come to hate me,” she says, barely hearing him over the way she feels like she's lost the reins on her time with him. “Eternity is a long time, and you will tire of seeing it through with me.”

He looks momentarily taken aback, then laughs, sending her a fond smile.

“Did Kreia teach you that?” Atton says. “How to ruin any moment? You're better at it than I am.”

Cela barely emotes in response, and he sighs.

“It doesn't matter. You could come to hate me, too, you know? That's just life.”

“Maybe we should wait until you're older,” she muses.

“Older?” Atton says, incredulous. “I'm in peak physical condition right _now_. You want me to turn immortal at ninety? At that point, _let_ me die.”

“I see—so you're in this for eternal youth,” she says. The tentative smile upon her lips should say she's joking—or trying to—but he takes her hands in his and surprises her in choosing not to joke back.

“I'm in this for you,” Atton says. “I... want to be with you. As equals.”

Cela's smile wavers and disappears, replaced with an uncertain, worried lip.

“It is permanent,” she says.

“I know.”

“It will be painful,” she says.

“I can take it.”

“I can not,” she whispers, at last. She pulls away, leaving his hands free of her touch.

“You can't what, _hurt_ me? Cela, I thought we were—”

“I cannot hurt myself. I am selfish, I would rather see you die. —Not die! I would see you leave.”

“Cela?” He tries to step closer, and a confused, hurt look comes across his face to see her back away. “You're not making any sense.”

“ _You_ are not. Why would you join me? You have never liked what I am.”

“I've had a change of heart since meeting you.”

“You've—seen the merits of vampirism. You seek power. Leave, and ask another.”

“Why?” Atton asks, hurt slowly turning to bitterness. “Why can't it be you? What's so wrong about me that you can't bear to turn me?”

“I—it's not you.”

“Well? What is it, then? Let's just get it all out of the way now.”

His arms are crossed, and his brow is furrowed, and none of the shy energy he'd displayed earlier has its traces on him now. Caught between him leaving because she wouldn't tell him, and him possibly leaving because she told him, she clenches her hands into fists.

“It's my love,” she admits.

“Your... your love?” Atton says. His voice is weak, as though merely speaking the words have dealt a heavy damage to him. “Is it... are your feelings... romantic?”

She nods.

“Oh,” he says. It's a sorrowful _oh_ , and her heart sinks in her chest, for what she'd feared is coming true.

“You see why I couldn't tell you,” she says.

“Yeah, I... I guess, I... I should've seen it coming,” he says.

“I don't expect anything to come of it,” Cela says, trying to reassure him. Surprisingly, it works, and he perks up with some measure of hope.

“So it's unrequited?” Atton says. “I mean— I'm sorry. That's tough.”

“No, Atton, I...” It seems he hasn't understood; she must tell him once more. “Atton, my love is for you.”

And here she can stand brave no longer, chin dipping below her shoulders, wilting as he looks upon her.

“We haven't spoken of it,” she goes on, if only to prolong her last moments with him. “I didn't think that you would want me to. But if you were to live for an eternity, the day would come where I could stand my silence no more.”

“Cela... Cela—” Rather than leave, he takes her sorrowful form into his arms, spinning her round in a joyful embrace. Cela merely lets herself be held to his warm chest, longing but confused, looking up at his relieved smile.

“What's so ambiguous about “I want to be with you”? As equals, for as long as we both can stand each other?”

“That... can mean many things,” Cela says, faintly, barely believing what she thinks Atton's saying—has been saying all this time. “It could mean a great friendship.”

“Then fine, I'll say it too,” Atton says, and leans in to speak it to her, and her alone, “I love you.”

She thinks that is all she'll hear, but he continues, “I love you, and I meant it every time I flirted with you, and I've dreamed of kissing you since the moment we first met—”

“You're giving me too much,” Cela says, her heart overflowing with his warmth. She's flustered, so thoroughly that even the weak grip she has on his shirt gives her away, and she's sure that he knows it. “But I...”

He's wearing a bold smirk, the kind he'd worn once after she fed, when his mind was still lost to the haze of the bite and he'd asked her for a kiss. She hadn't known what she'd wanted, then—for Atton to ask her again when he was sound of mind, or for her to not have lingered long enough to hear it.

“I've dreamed of kissing you, too,” she confesses at last. And, taking his face in her once-more steady hands, she leans in and does.

It's different than his neck beneath her teeth; less warm, and more pleasant. When she comes away, red stains the curve of Atton's lip, marred with a tiny cut. She can't suppress a small gasp, but Atton just gives an amused quirk of his brow.

“Nicked me, huh? I'm gonna have to get used to that,” he says, licking over the cut. The blood is wiped away, but more wells up in its place.

“Atton, stop. Let me.” Her lips return to his, this time to seal away the cut she'd made. She can't resist tasting him once or twice before that, though, and comes away with the satisfying tang of iron upon her tongue.

Somewhere between their kiss and the move she'd just finished, Atton has once again grown pink and almost shy.

“Was that alright?” Cela asks, realizing now that her question is belated. “I'm sorry I...”

“Yeah, all fine,” Atton says, looking as though he’s trying very hard to will away his blush. “Just never thought you'd actually kiss me better.”

Running her tongue lightly over her teeth, Cela finds that she feels little guilt over his taste, anymore.

“I will miss feeding from you,” she admits.

“Oh, I see,” says Atton, teasingly, “So you're just in this for my blood.”

“For you,” she corrects easily, as he did for her. “I will turn you, Atton. I will need to make a few preparations, but—”

“All business again; I like that about you,” Atton says, “But you don't have to get into all that yet. I mean, don't you want to take another bite of me, one last time?”

His assumed nonchalance has an edge of anticipation to it, and though she sees it, she chooses to tease him instead.

“Of course. My last bite will be the one that turns you.”

“But shouldn't _you_ get a last meal before that? You know—for my undeath?” She laughs, and he pouts beseechingly at her. “Come on, Cela, don't make me say it.”

“For our last, I think I will,” she says. “Now, come; we have your turning to discuss.”


	9. signature; reflection; hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> three unrelated little moments. i still like the second one the best

Signature

✧

“Atton?”

The sound comes from parsecs away. He would rise to meet it, but is loathe to leave the envelope of comfort that surrounds him. As if aware, it withdraws on its own, leaving him cold... and with the cold comes pain, snaking through him along old, familiar paths, reaching his head at last and jolting him back into consciousness.

“Atton, you passed out in the field. I carried you here with the Force.”

He can see Cela now, leaning over him, backed with the glow of sunlight filtered through trees. She conceals it, but she's worried—worried about him. He remembers to speak.

“Is that what that was? I didn't know the Force could feel like that.” He can't seem to remember to stop speaking, and continues, “It's like I was bathed in calm, and light, and...”

“We all have our own signatures, when the Force passes through us,” she says. He remembers something like that from Dantooine, something Kreia said, and has a feeling he regrets he’d said anything. “Perhaps you have only grown aware of mine now because of your awakening... or perhaps my connection to the Force had not yet grown strong enough for it to be felt.”

A warmth blooms within his heart and rises to his cheeks, unbidden. Of course. He had felt _her_ —a yet-unconscious part of him had known it, and he'd just let himself _say_ it, like an idiot.

“What does mine feel like?” Atton asks, as though it would help him escape the moment. He’s not sure what he wants to hear. She doesn't answer immediately, instead gazing at him with some unreadable look in her eyes, before she turns and directs her gaze towards his injuries.

“It feels like you,” she says, in less words than he’d hoped. “Here, let me heal you, and we can go.”

But he can see the brush of color across her cheeks, and the hint of a smile upon her lips, and in this moment he doesn’t care what his touch of the Force feels like, only that she looks this way when she thinks of it—thinks of him.

✧

Reflection

✧

Cela's lips twist into a conflicted frown. “On Dantooine, before Kreia struck them down, the Jedi Masters gathered to sever me from the Force... for good, this time.”

Atton remembers. It kind of got overshadowed by Kreia's machinations, and the Sith lords, and Malachor, but he remembers feeling it—thinking she'd died.

“They said I hadn't regained my connection to the Force. That I had been using all of you, channeling the Force through each of you to make me stronger.”

“And you believed them?” He asks.

“I don't know what to believe,” she says, looking away now. “I only know that this feels _right_. I am stronger with you, not because of the Force, but because of what we have been through together. You, me... all of us.”

Her expression remains troubled, however, and he finds himself replying, “Don't let them get in your head.”

“They're gone,” Atton says. “And you're here, with me. You might be right, or you might not—but you're alive.” _And that's what matters._

“But if I've been using you...”

“Everyone uses each other,” Atton shrugs. “I knew what I signed on for.”

✧

Hold

✧

Today Atton takes her hand on his own before she can find an excuse to take his. Surprised by this turn of events, Cela looks up at him, but his attention is already elsewhere, scanning the crowd before them.

In the background, her crew disperses, setting off on their own paths away from the central hub. As she leads Atton towards her destination, he matches her pace, and her hand remains securely in his. She glances up at him once, then twice, but there's nothing strange about him—just an unexpected measure of initiative. She stops, and he pauses himself one step later.

“What is it?” Atton looks around, finding only passersby and a merchant's stand, and frowns in confusion. “You want to buy something? We just stocked up, and I thought you had a better deal going with that vendor on Nar Shaddaa.”

“You're holding my hand,” Cela points out. Immediately, as though it'd been delayed but inevitable, a warm pink rises in his cheeks.

“Maybe I am,” Atton says, challenging tone at odds with the endearing blush on his face. “And? You have a problem with it now?”

“I just didn't think you'd noticed.”

“Of course I noticed,” he grouses, suddenly reluctant to look her in the eye. The blush has splashed down his neck, now, to be hidden by the collar of his jacket. “It's _my hand_.”

“Well, I didn’t know you liked it.”

“You should've asked then, shouldn't you?”

“Do you like holding hands with me, Atton?”

“I take it back. I'm not answering that,” he says, though they both know his answer anyway. “Are we going, or are we going to stand here all day like idiots?”

He gestures at their joined hands, but all Cela registers is that _he's still holding her hand._

“We're going,” Cela says. A warm smile takes over, and she leans into Atton's side, mindful of his jacket's shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> I draw better than I write over on [tumblr](https://sovonight.tumblr.com/tagged/atton-x-exile)


End file.
